Telephones are one of the most widely-used communication tools in the world. At early stages in development, telephones were merely a convenient tool to allow people to communicate while they are physically separated. At the present time, however, many organizations use telephones to market products and services, provide technical support to customers, allow customers to access their own financial data, and much, much more. Thus, telephone systems have become a widely used major business and marketing tool.
Telephony call centers have been developed in order to bring about effective use of the telephone system for business and marketing purposes. In a call center, typically a relatively large number of agents handle telephone communication with clients. A typical call center has at least a telephone switching apparatus, such as a PBX, which has a trunk for incoming calls and station-side ports for connecting to agent's telephones. The switching apparatus may be an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), distributing calls to agents as they become available, or the switching apparatus may be controlled by a connected processor in what is known in the art as a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) system. The matching of calls between clients and agents is typically performed by software.
A simple example is used here to describe a few of the many advantages of call centers. When a call is made to a call center, the telephone number of the calling line is made available to the call center by a telephone carrier. Based on this data, software in the call center can access a database server to obtain information about the client placing the call. The software can now route the call to an agent who can best handle the call based on predefined criteria (e.g., language skill, knowledge of products the customer bought, etc.). Such a system uses a method known to the inventor as skill-based routing. In some cases the software may immediately transfer relevant information about the client to a computer screen used by the agent (screen pop). Thus, the agent can gain valuable information about the client prior to receiving the actual call. As a result, the agent can more effectively handle the telephone transaction.
In recent years, advances in computer technology, telephony equipment, and infrastructure have provided many opportunities for improving telephone service in publicly switched and private telephone intelligent networks. Similarly, development of separate information and data network known as the Internet, together with advances in computer hardware and software have led to a new multi-media telephone system known in the art as Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT). In IPNT calls are handled directly between computers over a digital network, and voice data is packaged as data packets.
Under ideal circumstances IPNT telephony has all the quality of conventional public and private telephone intelligent networks, and many advantages accruing from the aspect of direct computer-to-computer linking. Circumstances re: the Internet are, however, often less than ideal, and bandwidth limitations typically lead to delay and interruption of voice communications. Video calls using such as the Internet rather than conventional telephony networks with dedicated bandwidth are even less efficient because higher bandwidth is required. Still, even given these realities, In IPNT as well as in the older intelligent and CTI-enhanced telephony systems, both privately and publicly switched, it is desirable to handle more calls faster and to provide improved service to customers in every way.
As Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) systems become more sophisticated, and multimedia communication becomes more pervasive, increasingly sophisticated call centers are being developed wherein multimedia communication of many sorts is used by agents in addition to conventional telephony techniques. Companies are developing multimedia communication methods and are beginning to integrate these methods within the call center environment. These developments have produced a new breed of multimedia agent to handle communication with the aid of advanced software-communications programs. Agents within call centers who once handled only telephone communications are now required to handle a variety of communications such as, but not limited to E-mail, Video mail, Video calls, and data network calls such as Internet protocol telephony (IPT) calls.
It can be appreciated then, that a multimedia agent for purposes of this specification is an agent in a call center charged with handling various communications transactions, and who has access to multi-communication mediums, hence, the term multimedia. A multimedia agent may work in a call center set up for technical service, sales, management, or for any other purpose for which call centers are used.
As described above, many of the newer mediums of communication that may be employed by a multimedia agent involve some type of computer integration. The term communication center, rather than the term call center more accurately reflects the added computer hardware and software capabilities available to today's call-in center. Therefore, the term communication center will be used to replace the term call center hereinafter in this specification.
In such communication centers, agents are typically provided with computerized workstations, including a computer, which may be a personal computer, and a video display unit, hereinafter termed a PC/VDU. In communication centers known to the present inventor, the agents' PC/VDUs are interconnected on a local area network (LAN), which may also connect to one or more processors in turn connected to a telephony switch to which the agent's telephones are connected. Through sophisticated computer techniques integrated with the requisite hardware, multimedia capability for the agents is achieved.
A multimedia agent working in a communication center such as described above is assigned to a workstation as described, and the workstation, together with software accessible on the LAN presents graphic user interfaces (GUIs) for displaying information relating to each communication transaction handled by that particular agent. For example, along with normal phone capabilities, the agent may be capable of sending and receiving E-mail, Video mail, and the like. Video conferencing may also be a part of an agent's transaction protocol. Similarly, a caller to such an agent may have a PC connected on-line, or to a network accessible to the agents, and thus be enabled to send and receive E-mail, video calls, or any other multimedia communication that the agent may host. As well, callers may be accessing the agent from a normal analog telephone where only voice mail capabilities and conventional telephony audio services are utilized.
Call routing to and within communication centers involves computerized platforms and software dedicated to directing a caller to an appropriate agent for the purpose of fulfilling the purpose of the caller. This type of call routing is known to the present inventors as agent-level call routing. Routing of calls, then, may be on several levels. Pre-routing may be done at Service Control Points (SCPs) and further routing may be, and typically is, accomplished at individual call centers.
As described above, multimedia communication methods are emerging as applicable methods of communication within communication centers. For example, E-mail programs, video calls, IPT calls, and the like can be utilized by agents in addition to voice mail and more conventional telephony connections. In many cases, agents are continually connected to such as the Internet for the purpose of contacting or responding to many Internet-sourced inquiries that come in from customers looking at Web-based advertisements hosted by the communication center or associated enterprise.
Aside from V-mails and e-mails, customers may wish to connect to a specific live agent via IPNT conventions. However, due to the nature of the connection (shared bandwidth), a customer cannot wait for a connection. If the agent called is not available at the time of the incoming IPNT call, then the customer must typically send an e-mail or the like requesting a response. If an IPNT queue shared by several agents is in effect at the communication center, the chance for a real-time connection increases, however, it is not guaranteed. Keeping many IPNT users in a queue is a drain on precious bandwidth resources. Moreover, most IPNT applications impose a connection time-out wherein if no agent is immediately available, then a simple busy notification is transmitted back to the calling party. In current art, the customer has no way of knowing when the agent may be available to respond.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus for informing IPNT callers calling into a communication center as to an accurate time estimate that a responding agent will call back. Such a method and apparatus may be provided to interface with callers either at the time of a call attempt, or even before a call attempt has been made. Moreover, much unnecessary use of bandwidth resulting from many IPNT callers held in a queue or otherwise attempting to forge a connection may be prevented.